Kiss a Frog, Weird Stuff Happens

1908's "La Grenouille" by Segundo de Chomón gives us some imaginative, hallucinogenic trick film effects

Today’s hed gif brings you a portion of La Grenouille (“The Frog”), a 1908 work by early trick film pioneer, Segundo de Chomón. Created primarily with the goal of showcasing de Chomon’s mastery of illusions, the plot of the short-length film is straightforward: a woman, perhaps a fairy, comes upon a fountain and encounters a giant frog. The fairy-tale theme takes a surreal turn when the scene magically changes and the frog encounters a larger version of itself. Purple and orange plumes of smoke herald new scene changes, sprays of colorful water and weird disembodied heads—equally humorous and unsettling— appearing in sequence in the fountain. Statues both fantastic and majestic also appear in the fountain, all directed to life by the magic woman. Eventually the fountain returns to its original form and the woman embraces the frog to celebrate their shared adventure. While the scene-change tricks are somewhat obvious to us modern film viewers accustomed to the concepts of editing, splicing and colorization, to uninitiated audiences this film would likely have made for a magical theatrical experience. In addition to his creative cinematic tricks, La Grenouille is a good example of the dreamlike and sometimes bizarre imagery that de Chomón favored and which made him a darling of the Surrealists of the era.

Segundo de Chomón (1871-1929) was Spanish-born and came to the film industry via his wife, French actress Julienne Mathieu, a star of early Pathé Frères productions. Having already established a successful business in recorded music distribution and phonograph sales, the Pathé brothers were keen to expand into the budding motion picture industry and so they set about hiring sales and publicity around Europe. Around 1900 de Chomón became an agent for Pathé Frères in Spain, publicizing and distributing their films out of Barcelona.

Starting in 1901, de Chomón began producing his own films in Spain on an independent basis, distributing them through Pathé. His first “trick film” was Gulliver en el país de los gigantes (1903), a short black-and-white silent film based on the Jonathan Swift's 1726 novel Gulliver's Travels. Charles Pathé was particularly impressed with de Chomón's trick films and lent support to his efforts with the desire of competing with Georges Méliès and the Lumière brothers.

Comparisons between Méliès and de Chomón are common, both being early pioneers of film illusions and tricks, both creating fantastic, unreal imagery intended to amaze. And both men were working for French production companies; de Chomón and Mathieu relocated to Paris in 1905 to work directly for Pathé Frères. De Chomón’s first assignment at Pathé was dual duty, primarily focused on running the company’s film color stenciling department—a process he and Mathieu created—and also performing periodic directing duties. His period of greatest directorial and creative output came between 1907 and 1912, a time when Méliès’ efforts had largely tailed off. While he still continued his work for Pathé, he moved back to Barcelona in 1910 to start an independent production company, Iberico Films.

With Iberico Films getting off to a slow start, in 1912 de Chómon accepted an invitation to make films in Italy. In addition to his own films, he worked on special effects on the films of others. Thus production of his own films became less frequent after this move, with efforts focused on the visual effects and cinematography in others’ films. At the end of the 1920’s, de Chomón collaborated with Swiss inventor Ernest Zollinger (a veteran of both Pathé and Itala Films) to develop a photographic, two-color film process. De Chomón had intended to return to film production full-time at his own studio but he passed unexpectedly of a heart attack at age 57.

Although his contributions were perhaps eclipsed by the popularity of Georges Méliès’ oeuvre, Segundo de Chomón was an important and influential figure in early cinematography, particularly in the development of the creation of a Spanish national film industry. His technical innovations included film frame color stenciling and frame-by-frame shooting. His imaginative film innovations incorporated clever lighting effects, brilliantly colored frames, hand-drawn animation, articulated puppetry, backstage sound effects and voices paired with the screening of silent films, and a myriad of surprising and delightful illusions. He directed or participated in the production of more than 500 films, with a keen eye and sophisticated instincts for what could be accomplished with moving pictures.

The entire short film can be seen at the Internet Archives, direct link available below.

Internet Archive: La Grenouille

Wikipedia: Segundo de Chomón

Medium: "The Frog by Segundo de Chomón" by Filmofile, 9/23/23